Friday, July 26, 2013

ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is coming
to town to celebrate its 40th birthday at the Palmer House on August
8th! Are you invited? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean you
shouldn’t be there. *

If you’re looking for the Red
Carpet zenith of corporatist affairs, ALEC’s Thursday afternoon gala is not to
be missed. In just a mere four decades,
the Koch Brothers’ political inspiration has brought us such blockbusters as
Parent Trigger, Waiting for Superman, Citizens United, Stand Your Ground, and,
well, School Privatization: the Prequel.
Rumors of a Koch Brothers’ new
conceptual rendering of the Middle Class swirl in Chicago, where ALEC plans to
hold its birthday bash. And what a shindig it promises to be!

The real action will arrive
on that Thursday with the appearance of the well-heeled powerbrokers from the
Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago. And we can expect to behold a goodly number
of the plutocrats who hold membership in more than just the city’s esteemed
coalition of industrial/financial elite.
In fact, over half of the roster
of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club is connected in membership,
support, or past affiliation with the American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC).

For those of us in the
gallery, thrilling for an autograph or even a cursory nod, we’ll need to keep a
sharp eye out for those Civic Committee/ALEC patrons who might attend.
Of course, leading the way will be Boeing’s CEO James W. McNerney, the
very model and corporate representation of what a chief supporter of ALEC
should be. McNerney, a man who knows how
to manage money, receives an annual salary of just over $22 million, but – and
you retirees better keep this in mind – he also has amassed nearly $39 billion
in retirement assets. And pensioners
worry about their COLA’s!

But, it’s not just the work
of CEO McNerney: Corporations are people too, my friends. A 2008 – 2010 scrutiny of U.S. corporations
by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy unveiled hundreds of major
businesses that pay little or nothing to the federal government for what they
earn in the United States (http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/CorporateTaxDodgersReport.pdf
).

Boeing is the King of the Tax Dodgers: In all three
years, Boeing paid NO federal taxes.
Hold on, it gets better.

I look omnipotent in this pose, don't you think?

In fact, Boeing’s actual
federal tax rate was -1.8%. How’s that
possible? You forget that Boeing is paid
by the federal government in contracts and perks for the delivery of goods to
the United States. For the years 2008 –
2010, while it earned profits of $9.7 billion, Boeing received an additional
$178 million in money back. How’d you
do?

On the state level, we’ll all
remember that our elected Representatives and Senators (see above) were willing
to provide Boeing another $41 million in the year 2000 just to come to
Chicago. After that, Chicago and its
Civic Committee friends threw in another $19 million in property tax relief and
a $2 million grant. In addition, Chicago
provided incoming families from Seattle expense accounts too. By the way, just a reminder, your property
taxes are coming due.

But Boeing’s just one
corporation, and McNerney is just one guy.
A cursory look at the membership
of the Civic Committee is all it takes to spot well over fifty more who play by
– scratch that – make the rules and work hand-in-hand with ALEC. See the list below:

A quiet moment.

Of course, there’ll be the
groupies and fashionmongers who really may not be anything more than ALEC wannabees, but they’re enjoyable
in their own lesser levels of sinister power and wheedling influence. You might see the ever-blustering Ty Fahner,
who may even arrive with his old friend James Thompson, perhaps in the black
Porsche the former Governor so coveted.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and now-Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker will have a
lot of catching up to do on Washington.

Have a good time and enjoy
the parade. By the way, keep your
hands on your wallet.

Civic Committee members with Ties to ALEC, after a
cursory investigation:

ALLSTATE – Edward Liddy –
works with ALEC to “Fix the Debt” by getting rid of social security
(Sourcewatch).

Thursday, July 18, 2013

ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is coming
to town to celebrate its 40th birthday! Are you invited? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean you
shouldn’t be there.*

There’ll be some legislative
movers and shakers there. Representative
Darlene Senger, Senator Christine Radagno, and Representative Tom Cross: all of them and many more (mostly
Republicans) are members at the state level as Task Force Members for ALEC.
That means that they bring important legislative models drafted by ALEC into the

A metaphor for pretense - Rahmbo.

Springfield General
Assembly for passage into law in Illinois.
Even an “ersatz” Democrat might show up – see picture.

These legislators don’t get
paid for this involvement, at least not exactly, but they do get to take paid-for
sojourns to places far and wide to meet with lawyers and corporate
representatives to help craft proposals and bills that might move the
conservative agenda mission of ALEC
forward at the state level. And, of
course, a corporation awash in money may be able to help someone find support
in this new world of Citizens United to get serious backing come next
election. More about that later.

“ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is NOT just a lobby (like the NRA) or a
front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state
legislators their wish lists to benefit the bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC’s
operations” (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Illinois_ALEC_Politicians).

ALEC Task Force Member Senger

The state chairman in Illinois for ALEC is Kirk
Dillard, a Senator from Hinsdale (of
all places), who has just recently announced his intention to run once again
for the office of Governor for the State of Illinois. Last time around, Senator Dillard lost the
primary by only 193 votes to Senator Bill Brady of Bloomington. But Dillard is unmoved and ready to be “all
in” for this next battle for leadership in our state. He outlined for the Chicago Tribune his
inability to run for another seat in the Senate this next year, given the
timing of his run in the gubernatorial race, which will prevent his political
office holding if he is defeated in the primary or the election.

According to Dillard, had he
been elected last time as the Governor, we would not be facing the nearly $100
billion deficit in pension spending we now face. Of course, Dillard is careful not to mention
that the deficit is actually money reneged from the necessary payments from
other Republicans like himself (Jim Thompson and his supporter Jim Edgar). Dillard says that he voted for SB1, and
Madian would have worked better with him than Quinn.

ALEC Chair Renee Kosel

The other Chair for ALEC in Illinois is Representative Renee Kosel of
Mokena. One imagines both Kosel and
Dillard are ecstatic about the upcoming birthday of their ideological patrons. They may even desire to celebrate the origin
and backers of the ALEC foundation,
although quite honestly the Koch brothers (Charles & David) are often
careful to avoid the limelight, preferring to work behind the scenes, greasing
the legislative wheels with hundreds of millions of dollars to promote the
agendas their father tutored them in their youthful and impressionable years.

Fred C. Koch was a self-made
man worthy of being admired by Kirk Dillard, Renee Kosel, or Ayn Rand. His inventive genius at finding a new
cracking method to turn crude into gasoline was the darling of the world, until
his patents were challenged in the United States. This kept him at bay for nearly fifteen
years. Enter stage left the Stalinist Soviet Union, which gave him millions to
build cracking plants in the USSR and millions more to teach technicians in the
United States how to make gasoline from the multitudinous reserves below the
Russian permafrost.

ALEC - Health & Human Services?

Despite the mega-generous
returns on his assistance, once he returned from Russia, the elder Koch decided
Communism was an evil that must be destroyed at all costs, and when one (or his
sons) have $billions, that means pretty much spare change.

And the elder Mr. Koch became
a leader in the arena of conservative reform movements – very conservative
reform movements. He assisted in providing
the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission money to support their war against
federal encroachment or the attempt to force racial desegregation. (http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/). He became a heavy contributor and founding
father of the John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/fred-koch).

Tom Cross - Civil Justice & Stand Your Ground

In fact, some of his speeches
resonate strangely with the kind of speech one hears from the Tea Party leaders
of today as well as the Birthers that often denounce Obama’s presidency. “ Koch alerted that Communists “would
infiltrate the highest offices of government in the United States until the President
is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us” (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bhlead/umich-bhl-2009039?rgn=main;view=text
). Sound familiar?

Of course, Senator Dillard is careful – like his
other ALEC partners in the State of Illinois
– to be discreet when it comes to this kind of political connection, unless it
is unobtrusive and controlled, but, alas, events these last few months have
left all of us wondering about ALEC
and those who might support them, or in turn be supported by ALEC.

ALEC Civil Justice/Stand Your Ground

After the NRA was able to lobby successfully to
pass the Stand Your Ground Law in
Florida in 2005, ALEC adopted the
same law as a “model” for other states, sharing the outline with legislators
who participated in their “think-tank legislative getaways.” Twenty-six other states have adopted the same
kinds of laws. But now ALEC (like the NRA) is trying to distance itself from the Stand Your Ground Law, saying that their support sunset a few years
ago. Notice also how quiet the NRA has been about the law that ALEC later supported?

ALEC members
like Chapin Rose, Tom Cross, and, yes, KIRK DILLARD are Task Force Members on
the same Civil Justice committees that proposed and endorsed the Stand Your Ground bills that passed in
Florida and 26 other states.

With ALEC in mind, a very unsettling Senator Dillard has changes in mind
in Illinois and he warns us that he’s all in.
Indeed, he plans to make serious and, if necessary, severe changes to
issues of pensions, Metra, conceal and carry, and abortions. That’s worrisome.

The Koch brothers and ALEC would include all taxes, all
regulations on business, the dangers of unions, the Federal Reserve, Social
Security, the Affordable Care Act, the minimum wage, voting rights, and other
national issues; but as Governor, Senator Dillard can do much to help their
forward progress in small steps – just like Scott Walker did for them in
Wisconsin.

Monday, July 8, 2013

I received a friendly email rebuttal from Illinois Representative Jeanne Ives regarding my recent negative response to her assistant's declaration (during a coffee meeting) that Illinois had the worst economic outlook for businesses in the nation. I had sent an email follow-up that I thought was, non-partisan, but the Representative questioned its timeliness and as well as its origin. She offered a better and more accurate source for her assistant's information: CEO Magazine of May 2013. In the issue, published in the interest and grooming of the many plutocrats of the Civic Committee, one can find a coalescence of the attitudes and approaches to ameliorating the business climate that's found in the Tea Party approach: SB3303. Of course one of the premier authors/backers of this "non-partisan" description of the impoverished business climate is CEO Doug Oberhelman, who, well, has helped to add to the impoverished in Illinois and other states whenever he has had the chance.

Adjective: Pedanticism occurs during the presentation of
an argument or lesson, e.g., as in teaching, the over concern with one’s own
self-impression or importance. Remember
that instructor that was more interested in promoting his or her own brilliance
than awakening yours? Example: See –

Caterpillar CEO Doug
Oberhelman and his pretentious arguments to keep his aristo-income which is
wildly beyond rational - and at the expense of his workers – and blame the
educational system for his own workers’( and others’) diminished pay. Caterpillar’s Chief Executive Doug Oberhelman says that the
U.S. manufacturing workforce is lagging, and education is at fault.

At the National Conference of State Legislatures, a
political non-partisan group lately described as taking a decidedly conservative
bent as per ALEC (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/10/ncsl-democratic-legislators-conservative_n_1764903.html?utm_hp_ref=politics),
Oberhelman offered his own version of what would make the interface between
education and manufacturing in the United States a better fit. Of course, someone with nearly $17 million
per year (now $20 m) in benefits feels he has the right and pedagogical expertise to
explain what’s lacking in education – at least as he sees it. Like most successful privateers, many CEO’s facing their new global
economic needs think they have the answers for an acceptable worker’s education.

The keynote speaker at the conference was Edward Rust, Jr.,
State Farm Mutual’s CEO. Rust began by
lamenting that the U.S. needs workers with verbal and written communication
skills, people who can “think critically and possess intellectual curiosity.”

“The consequences of not addressing this are much greater
than they appear; perhaps, today,” said Rust (Cancino, Alejandro. Education concerns business leaders. Chicago Tribune/Business. 10 August 2012). Rust
went on to describe the loss of job-skills in half decades; in other words, the
set of skills needed to operate technological machinery evolves into completely
different needs within five years or less.
Upgrades in skills for basic workers are necessary in order to compete
globally.

In the past, U.S. manufacturers provided training as an
integral part of the acquisition and maintenance of long-term employees, but
that behavior has been dropped in favor of seeking off-shore expertise at lower
wages or off-site training and lesser pay.
Some countries continue to train.
For example, Germany, an economy that has weathered the economic
depression of 2007 – 12, has maintained its manufacturing edge through on-the-job-training
in manufacturing while the rest of Europe has not (Barlett & Steele. The
Betrayal of the American Dream.
Public Affairs. New York.
2012).

What health plan?

Quite the opposite, when Apple moved its manufacturing
factories from Colorado and California to cities in China to make I-products,
they did not train nor educate the steady streams of prospective, poorly
educated employees from neighboring rural areas. It was all about the money – how much could
be produced in how short a time. The end
result was huge groups of underpaid and overworked youngsters, enduring
twelve-hour shifts and living in flimsily constructed housing that moved ten per
room back and forth to the factories. These Foxconn designs were so disastrous that
rates of suicide began to alarm even the hardest of entrepreneurs in
China. Answer One? Build netting around the dormitories to
prevent the would-be jumpers from being successful. Enjoying
your IPad? But I digress….

Back to the pedantic
profiteer…

According to Doug Oberhelman, what education really needs is
a one or two year add-on to high school to prepare those who would be in the
manufacturing world a set of skills that they (that is, Caterpillar) could use
immediately (for how long?) to enter the manufacturing workforce. Get the picture? Learn a skill after high school, go to work
for a company like Caterpillar, and submit to what the corporate masters will
give you – for as long as they need not train you. According to Mr. Rust, that will be about
five years. In case that sounds cynical,
look at what the latest settlement of strikers in Joliet received: some changes
in seniority, but frozen salaries and double costs of benefits. One 40-year veteran described the Caterpillar
company as “not trustworthy” while many others felt cheated by the settlement (Cain,
Cindy. Tentative Pact Reached in Joliet.
Southtown Star. 15 August
2012).

Once more, back to
Doug’s bold vision:

Educated but worthless...

“Oberhelman also took a shot at higher education. ‘I for one
struggle a little bit with a $250,000 education for a philosophy degree. They are wonderful people but we cannot
employ philosophers in manufacturing in the United States’” (Cancino,
Alejandro. Education concerns business
leaders. Chicago Tribune/Business. 10 August 2012). Of course Oberhelman can’t. They would be degreed, intelligent thinkers
who might be well qualified to critically evaluate his company’s and his own rapacious
profiteering. Oberhelman wants a skilled
but not necessarily thoughtful employee.

On the other hand, if you look solely for the bottom line,
Doug is indeed a kind of Steve Jobs of earthmovers, a George Pullman of ditch buckets.

In 2011,
Caterpillar revenue grew 41 percent to $60.14 billion. Profit grew 83 percent
to $4.93 billion, up from $2.70 billion the year earlier. The company credited
those results along with the several acquisitions, record operating cash flow
for the machinery and power systems units, and other measures for his increased
pay. And, of course, Doug gets that
nearly $17 million in compensation, not to mention another $70,000 for
the use of the corporate plane and nearly $21,000 for home security.

Maybe Oberhelman will end up doing what the great manufacturing giant
George Pullman did, in order to maintain his own select position after
death. Fearing that some of his former
employees or other labor supporters might try to dig up his body, Pullman’s
family arranged for his remains to be placed in a lead-lined mahogany coffin,
which was then sealed inside a block of concrete. “At the cemetery, a large pit
had been dug at the family plot. At its base and walls were 18 inches of
reinforced concrete. The coffin was lowered, and covered with asphalt and
tarpaper. More concrete was poured on top, followed by a layer of steel rails
bolted together at right angles, and another layer of concrete”(http://www.cemeteryguide.com/pullman.html ). The entire burial process for George Pullman
took two days.

About Me

I am a retiree, political activist, social advocate and community volunteer. I taught at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange for 34 years in the Language Arts classroom and worked as an administrator for several years. My current avocations include various community outreach and assistance programs. Having benefitted from employment in a collegial, reflective teaching environment that encouraged dedication and professionalism, I continue to seek the promotion of education at all levels as a long-term effort combining talent, perseverance, commitment, and constant professional growth - not a blind adherence to a business model of measured production.

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